SUMMER MEETING AT BROOKFIELD. 127 



Fairly above high-water mark of the Missouri river we find twenty 

 feet of a limestone, which analysis shows to contain ninety per cent of 

 carbonate of lime. It is a good building stone, and burns into a good 

 article of lime. 



Perhaps fifty feet higher is a thick bed of variously colored shales 

 that could be easily ground into an excellent fire-proof paint. I have 

 seen some very fine specimens of this shale of red, and some of purple 

 colors, bright enough to make a good-looking paint for many purposes. 

 The Indians, or perhaps the mound builders, have buried with the 

 charred remains of human beings that may be found in hundreds of 

 their mounds on the hill tops next to the river, many highly colored 

 specimens of the same shale. 



About twenty feet above this stratum of shale is another bed 

 of limestone twenty feet thick — the same layer that furnishes the valu- 

 able building stone taken out at the lower quarries at Parkville. Higher 

 in the hills, the last legacy left us by the very latest of the oceans is 

 the stratum from which comes the very famous building stone of Fort 

 Leavenworth, and of the upper quarries at Parkville. For half a cen- 

 tury has civilized man been among these hills, and to the present hour 

 all these valuable things are nearly entirely undeveloped, in fact, nearly 

 unknown ; but the time draws nigh when there will be use and need for 

 much that lies in the hills of Southeastern Holt waiting its time. 



In the times of the oceans this region was not a quiet one, as may 

 be read from the changing features of these rock-beds, and in the days 

 of the lake this part of Holt county was as much perhaps as any other 

 a meeting place^of the waters, and of the endless variety of material 

 brought from so many places by the innumerable and ever changing 

 currents. 



Next above the last born of the oceans comes the Drift deposit ; 

 that creation of debatable origin, but of very definite character, of 

 uncertain thickness, never very deep, and in many places wholly want- 

 ing. It has but little to do with our soils, but from it come valuable 

 sands and clays. Mix this sand with the lime and the cements to be 

 burned out of the limestones that lie just beneath, and we may have 

 mortars for all of their purposes. Mix the drift sands with the clays 

 of the same formation, and the best of bricks can be made, as has been 

 proven forty years ago. There is no good reason why Holt county 

 should continue to bring its pottery from Peoria, Monmouth, Cincin- 

 nati, or even from across the sea, while under our feet are the clays of 

 the drift. 



